These Dark Secrets of Ours
by Infinity Reasons
Summary: It always seems that these dark secrets of ours break the strongest of us. Because it's always the secrets that hurt the most.


**Author's Note: You might be asking me, why on earth are you writing a story focusing on your least favourite pairing? And why are you writing a one-shot, the kind of story you dislike writing? To be honest, I'm asking myself the same thing. But it had to be a one-shot, because as a story the plot would be too small, and insignificant, and I also _wanted _to write a one-shot because I've never written one before. And as far as the pairing goes, in this instance, I kind of like it. Maybe it's because this story is slightly dark...and dear old Cinderheart has become a bit of a twisted maniac. Well, you've probably guessed this is a Cinder/Lion pairing, with mentions of Ice/Lion. **

**Well, what can I say? I like this one-shot, but it's dark. If you don't like the fact that Cinderheart might have gone slightly mad, then I don't suggest you read it. I haven't actually read Sign Of The Moon, but I've heard this is one of the events which happens in it, and even if it hasn't I congratulate myself on coming up with it. I don't think I did, though, so, we'll see. I don't mind the odd spoiler. I basically know every detail of what happens in the Fourth Apprentice, even though I haven't read it yet. Well, I'm getting a bit side-tracked now, so here's the one-shot.**

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><p><strong>These Dark Secrets of Ours<strong>

_One-shot_

I'd always been a fool.

I was impulsive, careless, and tactless – and I was not, most certainly _not _pretty. I had grey fur and blue eyes. I was an ordinary cat, who thought she'd live an ordinary life, and who expected that only ordinary things should happen to her. I thought that I'd be lucky enough to have a mate and kits, to live through an ordinary life with nothing extraordinary happening to me. I thought, before he came along, that I would be satisfied with every moment I lived through. I thought I could hide behind everything I knew about myself, that I could live through it and never have to reveal what I knew. If he'd been anyone else, I wouldn't need to tell him. And if my reasons for refusing to become his mate had been any different, then I wouldn't need to tell him. He thought that my only reason to do so was the reasons I'd given – I couldn't love him because of his powers. That made him think I was _jealous _of the powers he possessed, which I wasn't. It was just that I couldn't hide my secret anymore, when someone like him was around me; because, in a way, he'd been given a blessing by StarClan. Yet in my eyes, both our 'blessings' were a curse.

I loved him – I think I even loved him more than he loved me, because he moved on so quickly after I refused him. I wouldn't have turned away from him like that. If he'd died, I would have continued loving him and never given up hope, yet I suppose that this was different – I was alive, and I had told him that I hadn't loved him. Him falling to his death without a straight answer to me whether he loved me or not was _completely and utterly _different from that; and I wondered how I could ever compare it. I should have understood why he had moved on, but me, being selfish as I was, couldn't believe he had. So, for a while, I'd turned a blind eye to him with that other cat – I now hate the day she was born – until I could bare it no longer. I'd stood up and I'd yelled at him, in full view of the rest of the Clan, and I'd told him that he shouldn't be with her. He'd sent me a glare in response, which said it all – _why do you care? You're the one who broke up with me; shouldn't you be happy that I've gotten over you? _Then he'd marched away and left me standing there, leaving me to look like the idiot I was in front of the Clan.

I think it was because I was so blinded by hatred for her that it led me to making her life a misery, until she'd told _him_ about it, and he'd protected her as if his life depended on it since then. I could no longer put a thorn in her nest, because every time I went into the warriors' den, he'd be there, guarding her nest. I could no longer show her the face of my fury in the training sessions, because he'd be there, watching us. It dawned on me that he loved her like he'd once loved me. And it only made me angrier, but I knew there was nothing I could do. I was powerless, especially against him. If he hadn't been in the way, she'd have paid. She'd have paid for making my life ordinary again; she'd have paid for making me lose the cat I loved the most in the world. Now I know that it was my fault he'd begun to love her, but I guess it was too late for that.

I'd made many bad choices in my life, but none had been worse than this. I sat, with my tail wrapped around my paws, and stared up at the sky, thinking – _would the _real _Cinderheart, the one that was a medicine cat, have done this? _I already knew the answer to this; the medicine cat, with her level head and calm thoughts, would not have done what I'd done. She'd have known that she should have stepped aside and let the cat she loved love someone else, which she had actually done. I knew now that there was no place for me in StarClan. Not after what I'd done.

"You're a better cat then I thought you were," his voice made my jump, and I looked sideways, to where he was standing. "Do you think she's up there?"

"Of course," I said, trying to force the guilt out of my voice – and then I broke down into tears.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

I shook my head and looked behind me. There, lying twisted and broken on the ground in the middle of the camp was her body. He thought I'd been mourning her, but really, I was reflecting on my bad, stupid, _idiotic _choices. I should tell him, then and there, that it was me who'd killed her, and that she hadn't just fallen off the edge like everyone thought she'd had, that I'd pushed her. It was that I couldn't stand the way that he'd look at me afterwards. So I told him a whole other story, something I'd been meaning to tell him for moons.

"I didn't say I wouldn't be your mate because I was jealous, understand that. It's just that you'd been 'blessed' by StarClan in a way, and so…so had I. I'm the reincarnated Cinderpelt, Lionblaze – I am her as the warrior she'd always dreamed of being, but I don't think she'd want to be me now, not anymore. I didn't like this fact, and I still don't like the fact. I don't want to be someone else. I want to be me. And that's why being around you – it made me remember. So when you asked me to be your mate, I couldn't say yes. I didn't want to have the constant reminder that I wasn't really my own unique self. I was a fool after that, and I became jealous of her, because you loved her. I still loved you, Lionblaze, even after what I'd said. There was no little piece in my heart that didn't love you. I began to accept it, in a way, after a while, but then I had a dream where you asked me to be your mate all over again, and it brought back memories, dark memories. That's why –" I paused, tears still falling freely, and I didn't want to tell him, but I knew I had to "– that's why I pushed her, Lionblaze. I pushed Icecloud over the edge of the cliff."

I don't know whether it was shock in his amber eyes, but I think it was. Then, looking as if he was ready to kill me, he stalked away and settled down next to Icecloud, the one cat that he'd truly loved. The one cat that'd always been so supportive of him, no matter what; the one cat that could love him with all her heart; the one cat that didn't find it painful to be around him – and that one cat, it had never been me. It was always meant to be Icecloud, and never me. It was because I found it easy to push someone over the edge of a cliff, to their death, whereas she wouldn't, even in her darkest dreams, think of an idea like that. She was an innocent bystander, who I'd killed in all my fury. Her death, his heartbreak, was my fault. I'd broken the heart of the cat I loved two times over, and I wasn't proud of it.

Twice, my secrets that I kept buried within the depths of my soul had broken his heart. Twice, I'd made him feel as if the world was falling to pieces around him. Twice, I'd made him feel like he was not meant for love. Twice, I'd shaken the earth beneath his very feet. In his story, where I would have liked to be the hero, I was the villain.

I watched his stiff, mourning figure beside her and I knew that everything that had shattered his world had been my fault. He had motherless kits now, and I knew that I'd broken him. He wouldn't be the father they'd need – he would always be dwelling in the past. I had broken the strongest cat I'd ever known with two of my darkest secrets.

It always seems that these dark secrets of ours break the strongest of us. Because it's always the secrets that hurt the most.

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><p><strong>Author's Note: Well, did you like it? Cinderheart doesn't seem to have very good luck in this one-shot, does she? You know, I wonder how many reviews this'll get. I was reading a one-shot that had 86 reviews today. It was a good one-shot.<strong>


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